Neptune conjunction Mercury
With the Mercury-Neptune contacts, it is the mind level that is primarily sensitised and activated, so that the imaginative quality is emphasised and the main focus of life appreciation is through mental receptivity. The conjunction indicates a channel between the conscious mind and the unconscious mind, and both the energy and information flowing through this conduit need to be carefully integrated if a variety of imbalances and distortions is not to be created. The faculty of imagination will be highly stimulated and developed, and this will certainly require appropriate channels to be focused on so that other problems of perception are not created. The issue of mental realities is one which can make you unsettled, especially as you can tend to make mistakes in judgement based on misinterpreting facts and suggestive information. You have a mental process that can attempt to re-create experiences into more acceptable forms for personal absorption, a style of selective manipulation which excludes aspects of reality that you refuse to acknowledge. If this process becomes a regular pattern of mental behaviour, then you are liable to create a distinctly personal reality that is a fusion of the real and unreal which can pose additional challenges when it comes to disentangling them. This is often amplified by a tendency to be mentally escapist, avoiding the possibility of any painful experiences and situations by refusing to become involved in things. Relationships are likely to be characterised by over-idealism of lovers, either through having the mental illusion of a perfect lover that is unlikely to exist, and comparing everyone to this perfect lover and so ensuring that they fail to match up, or by wrapping lovers in over-glamorised ideals, elevating them to a mental pedestal and so ensuring that at some time they will inevitably topple off. Your mental images will be shattered, yet this does not deny the real experiences of disappointment and disillusionment that you will suffer... and continue to suffer unless you become more realistic in your evaluations within intimate relationships. Part of this process can arise from the sense of personal inadequacy that you feel and which you try to alleviate by imitation of others you respect or sometimes through attempts to bask in the glow of reflected glamour by associating with publicly famous people, which allows inner fantasies to develop. You are likely to have some creative and artistic talent, and your cultural appreciation will be developed. Your ideal type of employment will offer channels for such forms of personal expression, and it may be that you do develop towards writing, arts, photography or film as you have a gift for visual imagination which also has some inner content. Your approach will be intellectual and mentally resonant, rather than more emotionally evocative as with the Moon contacts. Training may be necessary to help draw out these talents, and your main talent may be related to giving an intellectual substance and context to artistic creations, as a critic does, although there you may need to be careful regarding a degree of intolerance in your attitudes. Another area of life that could be very attractive to you is that of a mental fascination with mystery, romantic illusions, the worlds of psychics, mystics and psychology: the realms of the mind. Because of that close channel between the unconscious mind and conscious mind, you may experience serving as a conscious channel between the two, with information, such as personal examples of telepathic communication or prophetic dreams and visions, being transmitted to the rational mind. If you have properly come to terms with reforging reality into acceptable patterns and have broken free of that impulse, and have a real understanding of how your own psyche functions by integrating the transpersonal planets into a functioning unified consciousness, then moving towards less tangible realms of the mind may be safe for you. However, if those intitial steps have not been made, then following your own fascinations into the inner worlds may not be so wise owing to that uncontrolled active imagination, and you could retreat inward to inhabit a nebulous dream world of your own making. So ensure that you carefully evaluate any ideas, impulses and motivations that enter your mind to clarify whether or not they are self-delusory or actual inner guidance. Such discrimination can be difficult to achieve, but it is essential to avoid becoming lost on the inner pathless path.